there were HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of rapes,robberies,lootings,arsons, tortures, assaults & COLD-BLOODED murders committed against UNarmed civilians in the southland.
if you were Asian,Black,Female,Indian,Jewish,Latino, Roman Catholic, a recent immigrant and/or POOR, you were an especial target of the "filth that flowed down from the north". (FEW of the "planter aristocracy" were victimized.)
fwiw, at least 92 of my family were raped/robbed/tortured/murdered by the yankee cavalry, ONLY because they were UNarmed, poor & NON-white.
free dixie,sw
Utterly false. Davis was captured near Irwinville, GA, and he was not wearing a dress. His wife Varina threw a shawl over his shoulders (Lincoln habitually wore a shawl as well, as did many of the period). The garment alleged to be a dress was an overcoat. Here's what Capt. James Capt. James H. Parker, a member of Union General Wilson's staff stated in the Argus of Portland, Maine. [The text was on display at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond as are Davis' garments when he was captured].
I was with the party that captured Jefferson Davis; saw the whole transaction from its beginning; I now say -- and hope you will publish it - - that Jefferson Davis did not have on at the time he was taken any such garment as is worn by women. He did have over his shoulders a water proof article of clothing -- something like a "Havelock." It was not in the least concealed. He wore a hat, and did not carry a pail of water on his head, nor carry pail, bucket or kettle in any way. To the best of my recollection, he carried nothing whatever in his hands. His wife did not tell any person that her husband might hurt some body if he got exasperated. She behaved like a lady, and he as a gentleman, though manifestly he was chagrined at being taken into custody. Our soldiers behaved like gentlemen, as they were, and our officers like honorable, brave men; and the foolish stories that went the newspaper rounds of the day, telling how wolfishly he deported himself, were all false. I know what I am writing about. I saw Jefferson Davis many times while he was staying in Portland several years ago; and I think I was the first one who recognized him at the time of his arrest.The War Department instructed the union military to appropriate the clothing in question - obviously no such garment was found. It was simply the furtive imagination of Union soldiers and the media in a feeble attempt to discredit the President of the Confederate States of America. Thankfully, the Union officer noted above stepped forward to repudiate the ludicrous and inane claims.When it was known that he was certainly taken, some newspaper correspondent -- I knew his name at the time -- fabricated the story about his disguise in an old woman's dress. I heard the whole matter talked over as a good joke; and the officers who knew better, never took the trouble to deny it. Perhaps they thought the Confederate President deserved all the contempt that could be put upon him. I think so, too; only I would never perpetrate a falsehood that by any means would become history. And, further, I would never slander a woman who has shown so much devotion as Mrs. Davis has to her husband, no matter how wicked he is or may have been.
I defy any person to find a single officer or soldier who was present at the capture of Jefferson Davis who will say, upon honor, that he was disguised in woman's clothes, or that his wife acted in any way unladylike or undignified on that occasion. I go for trying him for his crimes, and, if he is found guilty, punishing him. But I would not lie about him, when the truth will certainly make it bad enough.
[Also cited by Burke Davis, The Long Surrender, New York: Random House, 1985, p. 145].
Familiar?